Halloween

The past few years the majority of our department has dressed up with a common theme for Halloween. In 2016 we were "Pi-Rates" and 2017 we each were a digit in the Fibonacci Sequence (and ordered by height from least to greatest). We also dress up for Spirit Days and Pi-Day.

Halloween 2017

Halloween 2016

This year we started early in deciding (like mid-September) what we wanted to do for Halloween. One of the members, jokingly I think, mentioned Crayons. Well, that'll teach him because a few just took it and ran with it. Each member picked a color and made it math-y, like Radical Red, Exponential Emerald, or Octagon Orange. And one lucky member gets to be the Box.

Here is my journey: I got he cardboard from a co-worker that was perfect. I spent about 2 weeks working on my Box. I had to get the shape right; make the cuts for the head and arms; made a trip to Home Depot for finding just the right paint colors; measured out the stripes so they were as close as possible to being proportional; had a student draw out and color the crayons; sprayed, painted, and touched up until it was nearly perfect; added details until I ran out of time. Below are pictures at various points in the process.

Here is the completed front and back!! I'm thinking it looks really good. I'm also thinking I spent WAY too much time on it. When my husband mentioned a month ago to just buy one... I should have! But I also know if I had purchased one, this wouldn't be as cool and customized as it is.

Front!!

Back - look closely :-)

I plan on posting pictures of our Department after we take some tomorrow. And, if I'm lucky, I'll get some photos of my family. See, my daughter (whose 3) heard me talking about a crayon box and decided she wanted to be a Crayon too (Orange). I wasn't sure what my husband was going to do, and then a co-worker suggested a white t-shirt to color. So I'm the box, she's the crayon, and he's the paper. It's pretty good.

UPDATE:

Here is our Department.

2018-2019 Goals

I will be starting my 13th year teaching in just a few days (I actually started today, but it took me longer to finish this post 😳). I've had a lot going on this summer, including time to reflect on how I can be a better teacher. Below are my goals for this school year; I hope you will help keep me accountable toward them.

1. Make better connections with students. I really didn't feel I did a good job with this last year. In the Fall I had a student teacher and the Spring I had a lot going on personally. This is just an area I really would like to improve on this year. I want to know more about the students personal life and how I can help them be successful.

2. Incorporate more music and musical cues into instruction. I've let students listen to music on their own when they've been working, but I realize they need to be available to talk and discuss with their classmates. I have also played music on some days for them. Inspired by Ed Campos, I'd like to use songs for various cues - getting up to the board, pairing up, starting and ending class. I've got Spotify and Amazon Music ready to go on my computer (and phone), just not sure which platform will be best until classes start.

3. Not bringing so much work home. This is going to be super tough. I'll be teaching 3 classes (for the first time in like 2 years) and having all different preps (Financial, Senior AVID, and Integrated Math 2). On top of all that, I will also have a period of coaching and curriculum planning for Math 1 & 2. And somewhere, I'll be needing to complete the preparation for my three classes, including one which will be Standards Based for the first time all the way through. - We are only 1 day into the school year and I'm already failing at this, but hopefully I'll get in a groove and planning will go smoother.

4. Not over committing. With what I'm hoping on accomplishing with the above (#3) goal, this will be very important. I enjoy being involved, but I also need to make sure how it affects my home and family time. Personally, I have several things going on this Fall (new fence, garage, roof, solar for house, In-Laws moved in, PT for ankle and knee injuries, and additional medical visits/procedures). It will become so important that I really try to take a deep breath, and the best way for this to happen is to realize what is important and say no to the other stuff! - I've already bombed at this... In addition to Department Chair and Sophomore Class Co-Advisor (which I've been doing), I am a support provider to two new teachers in our District. I've been doing this the past 4 years, but didn't last year for scheduling reasons. Hopefully, everything else that comes at me I have the strength to say NO.

Here's to a great 2018-2019 School Year!!!

Summer Plans

We've actually been out for almost a month now. I'm just now getting to writing after I've had time to relax and reflect. So here is a list of my plans for this summer:

1. Refine the concept mastery / standards based grading I dove into this spring in Integrated Math 2.  7/23

2. Once I've done #1, I want to look at how I can incorporate it into Financial Algebra. This may prove a little tougher since there are the procedural math skills and then the life skills they learn. But I like the idea of not counting points on the projects!

3. I'm planning to read (and finish! 🤣) Jo Bolar's Mathematical Mindsets. I've had the book for almost 2 years. So far, I'm doing pretty good- I only have 2 chapters left! 7/18

4. Getting the Level 1 and Level 2 Google for Education Certification. I started looking through and completing the Level 1 curriculum. My goal is to have Level 1 complete by mid July and level 2 by the end of August. 7/28 for Level 1.

5. I need to do A LOT of reorganizing and cleaning in my classroom. a) it just needs to be done, b) I will be sharing my classroom with another teacher and it will be there "office" so I want to create a space for whomever it'll be, and 3) inspired by Sarah Carter from Math Equals Love, I will be incorporating a puzzle table into the room. It's actually really cool because I submitted a project on Donors Choose for the table and lots of puzzles and manipulatives - it was fully funded in less than a week!! So I'm super excited to get the items and start setting it up. 

6. Non work related, I'll be enjoying (on most days, hopefully) time with my daughter. She is almost 3 and full of energy, so that will keep me very busy. I like being lazy and she needs to be out running around, so this may prove to be a tough challenge! 

7. Keeping my sanity and working on my health. I started running again back in May. Then I stepped on an uneven part of concrete, rolled my ankle, and fell, landing really hard on my knee. This happened 7 weeks ago and I'm still having some difficulty with pressure directly on my knee 😒. But I'm trying to still do some workouts, just not too much cardio. Other than that, my in-laws just moved in, so I'll be working on that adjustment.

Anyone else have a long list like me?

Life isn't work

Lately, my husband has been hassling me a bit because whenever I'm home (after we put our daughter to bed), I'm always working. With 2 new classes, prepping a course for the team, and department chair duties, there never seems to be enough time during my work day to get things done. So I use the last few hours of the day to try to power through things. I know I should prioritize my family time more (I've gotten better about not doing so much work on the weekends!), but it's so difficult feeling the crazy pressure and time frames of a 4x4.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a colleague - I had to silence it as I was finishing up planning with another teacher. At 10 o'clock in the evening, I got a text stating that a colleague, who retired just over a year ago, had a massive heart attack. They were in the hospital, but as of that evening hadn't regained consciousness. I'm hoping to find out more details today since they were going to go visit.

At this point, I'm just baffled. I'm totally bummed about this news. It really puts life into perspective and brings back to the forefront what's most important. For me, that's not my work. I love what I do and I love working with students and teaching them about life. But that can't come at the expense of my life and my family.  So, it's going to be a crazy next 9 weeks, but I've got to stop bringing so much work home (both physically and mentally) and start focusing more on my family, since they truly are what matter the most to me!

I'm Back!!

After an almost two year hiatus (pregnancy and enjoying time with my wonderful daughter), I decided that I need to start blogging again. I'm hoping that I can post more often than my last go around and offer more insight and resources into my teaching.

As I've spent the summer preparing and planning for the upcoming school year, I felt like there were a lack of resources for the 3 classes I needed to prepare: Integrated Math 1, Financial Algebra, and Senior AVID Seminar. I thought if I was feeling this way, there had to be others out there? So, I'm hoping that by writing about my journey, it may stir additional conversations and offer others a place to gather some ideas. [DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert for these courses]

We are in our third year with Common Core Integrated Math. To be honest, we are really starting our 5th year since we are on a 4x4 schedule. The transition to Common Core and Integrated was tough, not for content but more due to parent and student resistance. I think it was more misunderstanding than anything. Seeing our students go through the 3 courses has been awesome - the level of math they are doing, the conversations they are having, the interest level! The past two years we were using the Mathematics Vision Project. In January, our three District high schools came together to discuss and choose one main resource that we were going to use moving forward (prior to this each school was using a different program). I highlight main resource because it was made clear that this would not be our curriculum; that our curriculum we would develop as we went and that we would have the ability to pull different resources together! Ultimately, we decided to go with CPM (College Preparatory Mathematics) as our main resource as we felt it would be more accessible to all students. While not ecstatic that we would have to change after all the time and effort my department had put in, I knew this decision would be for the best and I was still happy that I would be able to pull in my favorite MVP lessons. So I spent most of the Spring and Summer preparing for our upcoming school year. I've got 7 teachers teaching this course; 4 of them for the first time and 3 of those are brand new to our school (2 totally fresh teachers). It's going to be crazy this Fall. I'm excited at what resources we will be putting together and looking forward to the feedback our team has.

I spent a lot of the 2014-2015 school year working with another teacher in our District to get Financial Algebra as an approved course in our District. I'm a strong supporter of financial literacy in the classroom and wish more required it. At least this course would give a third year course option to our students and get them knowledgeable for the world they are about to enter. Since I was on Maternity Leave for 1/3 of last year, I decided to hold off on offering the course until this year. We got about 140 students signed up to take the class and will be offering 4 sections of it. I'm excited that I will have 2 of the sections and my former student teacher will have 2 of them. We have already spent several hours meeting and trying to figure out how we envision the class, what we want to cover, and how we can make it relevant and applicable to each student. More on this throughout the year!

Finally, I'll also be teaching Senior AVID Seminar. I taught Freshman AVID in the past for 2 years, so I'm excited and nervous about this switch to Seniors. Again, with our 4x4 schedule, curriculum gets crazy. I'm not sure how our school has managed this schedule (I know they have!) so I'm anxious about getting into figuring all that out. I'm also excited since my first set of freshman AVID kiddos are now seniors, so it'll be nice to see where they are now.

I'm planning on making an effort to blog at least once per week with my insights of these three classes. I'll post the resources I can too! I may write about a few other things too - as a BTSA support provider, department chair, sports enthusiast!

Foundation Gala

Saturday night was our school Foundation Fundraising Gala.  Our Foundation does so much to support our athletics, arts, and other campus programs, and this Gala is a huge source of that monetary support.  This was my second year attending.  The evening starts with a Silent Auction, then dinner, Live Auction, and Fund-a-Program Paddle Raise.  This year they had a photo booth, so groups were busy taking funny pictures! My husband and I wondered the silent auction for an hour and placed a few bids here and there.  We actually donated several of our photography prints and framed them neatly, so really we kept walking around having a competition on who could get the highest bid (he won with his picture of the Chicago River that got $65; my photo of the beloved Mr. Padre Statue got $45). We were seated at a table with two of my favorite colleagues too!! 

Overall, the evening was nice and helped to raise a lot of money (although I think more was raised last year). It's nice to get dressed up and out there, and shopping for a new dress the night before isn't too bad either!

My hunie and I

Mathies in attendance being goofy!